From John J. Mearsheimer.
00:19. A determination will soon be made by the British High Court whether to extradite Julian Assange to the United States where he has been indicted by the American government and will be put on trial. I am asking the court not to extradite him and instead to set him free. I believe this is a straightforward case. Let me explain. For starters, the case involves a wide variety of classified documents that Chelsea Manning, who was a government employee, leaked to Julian Assange, a journalist who ran WikiLeaks, a famous website that publishes classified and private documents that were not supposed to see the light of day. Manning was caught and punished because she was a government employee and she broke the law by leaking materials that were classified to Assange. But Assange is a journalist. He did not break the law, as it is commonplace for journalists to publish classified information that is passed on to them by government Insiders. If journalists in the United States were sent to jail for publishing classified materials, the jails would be filled with many of America's most famous reporters from newspapers like the New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal, but of course that hardly ever happens. Simply put, newspapers publish classified material and hardly anybody ever goes to jail. Why is this the case? What is the reason for this situation? Governments of every type, and this includes liberal democracies like the United States and Britain, sometimes go to great lengths to hide their actions or their policies from public view which makes it almost impossible for the public to evaluate and criticize their behavior. Given that governments sometimes act foolishly, even recklessly, this is not a good situation. Thus, a rich tradition has developed over time in the United States where insiders leak information about classified policies to journalists who publicize the information so that the public can evaluate it and push back hard against misguided policies. The most famous case that illustrates this phenomenon involves the famous Pentagon Papers which were a multi-volume study of the American decision to enter the war in Vietnam in the 1964, 1965 period and then escalate it in subsequent years.
3:32. Daniel Ellsberg, who was an Insider and had access to classified material, leaked the papers in 1971 to the New York Times which subsequently published them. The story in those documents was starkly at odds with what the Johnson Administration had been telling the American people about U.S. policy in Vietnam. By most accounts at the time and certainly since then, both Ellsberg and the New York Times performed an important public service. They exposed a bankrupt policy that underpinned a war that the US could not win. Ellsberg did not go to jail despite leaking classified information although it did appear at the time that he might be sent to jail. Certainly, nobody at the New York Times went to jail because again journalists don't go to jail for publishing classified information in the United States. It is very important to remember that in the case of Julian Assange, he is not the equivalent of Ellsberg because he was not an Insider who leaked the information. Chelsea Manning was the insider; Assange was the equivalent of the New York Times and thus he should not be extradited so he can be put on trial in the United States. Unsurprisingly, government leaders do not like leaks unless they do the leaking which they frequently do. Thus, they are powerfully inclined to punish those who do leak and they even try on occasion to punish the journalists who publish leaked material as is the case with Assange. It is fair game for governments to go after leakers, but it is not acceptable for governments to go after journalists. Indeed it would directly undermine freedom of the press which is essential for monitoring the governments and holding them accountable when they pursue misguided policies. In fact, one of the main reasons that the U.S. government is so determined to put Assange behind bars is that he has exposed malfeasance by U.S. policymakers. In my opinion, that is all for the good and essential for making liberal democracy, like the United States, work as efficiently and wisely as possible.
6:35. Two final points. First, it is important to emphasize that nobody was hurt because of the documents that Assange published. Nobody's life was put in danger because of what he posted on WikiLeaks and certainly nobody was killed. For sure, the misguided actions of many U.S. policymakers were exposed because of what Assange did, but that, in my opinion, was all for the good. Second, Assange has already paid a huge price for his actions. He has effectively been in prison for years. Sending him to the United States where he is likely to be convicted and sentenced to a long jail term would be a case of cruel and unusual punishment. For all these reasons, I respectfully ask the British High Court not to extradite Assange to the United States. In my opinion, that would clearly be the right decision. Thank you.
